Issue of the Year: The Environment

THE astonishing achievement of the year," says Ecologist Lamont Cole of
Cornell, "is that people are finally aware of the size of the problem."
They can hardly avoid it. In 1970, the cause that once concerned lonely
crusaders like Rachel Carson became a national issue that at times
verged on a national obsession; it appealed even to people normally
enraged by attacks on the status quo. With remarkable rapidity it
became a tenet in the American credo, at least partially uniting
disparate public figures ranging from Cesar...